7/4 ROCK BEATS

In this lesson we will look at playing rock
beats in 7/4 time. 7/4 is the time signature, which means that there
must be 7 beats worth of notes or rests in each bar, before a new
bar starts. Most rock beats are in 4/4 time, so 7/4 will sound
unusual to the untrained ear. It will often sound like 4/4 with 3
extra beats, or sound 1 beat short of 2 bars of 4/4.

First of
all just get used to seeing and counting 7/4 time. Here is a bar of
7/4 with all the quarter notes written in, this is the pulse you
will feel..

To begin with, let's just play a really simple
beat, with a double snare on the last 2 beats, this will give you an
idea of the basic phrasing in 7/4, which we can later build upon..

Next let's build upon this beat by adding in
some basic bass drum 8th notes..

We can also add in some extra 8th notes on the
snare drum..

And finally you can begin to add 16th notes and
other ghost notes etc on either snare or bass..